Looks who's on that bandwagon

The Herald sidestepped the substance of Brown's interview with "doyenne" Barbara Walters to focus on the burst of national attention the senator-elect has received since beating Martha Coakley two weeks ago.

The cheerleaders also missed the fact that financial executives were on the same bandwagon, showering $450,000 in cash in six days to make sure Wall Street would be heard (and perhaps drown out) Main Street.

Richard Hillman, an analyst for First Wilshire Securities who lives in California, said he was following the Massachusetts election only casually, and decided to give to Brown at the last minute, when a friend told him the race was unexpectedly close. “I ended up giving money through my credit card that afternoon,’’ said Hillman, who contributed $2,400 on Jan. 16.

“Basically, I thought making him the 41st Republican vote in the Senate would prevent some really terrible legislation from getting through,’’ he said.

Obviously the jury is still out on what Brown will actually do when he gets sworn in and casts real votes. But it's time for the fevered promotion of the grassroots phenomenon to pull back in light of the fact there is obviously some serious landscaping efforts as well as some AstroTurf under the wheels.

1 Comments:

You can give $2400 to a Senate candidate? I thought there was some kind of maximum.It seemed there was more media dicussion of the exact nature of Coakley's deep-pocketed corporo-lobbyist contributors than Brown's "grassroots deluge" in the final days leading up to the election. Better late than never- I guess. This somewhat lopsided financial coverage, coupled with a just-in-time-for-the-election hit piece in the Globe about Coakley's delayed prosecution of a cop who raped a little girl, may have helped swing some votes Brown's way.